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The San Patricio Battalion and the Irish Experience

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The San Patricio Battalion and the Irish Experience Western Oregon University Digital Commons@WOU Student Theses, Papers and Projects (History) Department of History 2015 Forgotten Bravery: The aS n Patricio Battalion and the Irish Experience Brian D. Reese Western Oregon University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/his Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Reese, Brian D., "Forgotten Bravery: The aS n Patricio Battalion and the Irish Experience" (2015). Student Theses, Papers and Projects (History). 40. https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/his/40 This Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at Digital Commons@WOU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Theses, Papers and Projects (History) by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@WOU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Forgotten Bravery The San Patricio Battalion and the Irish Experience By Brian D. Reese Primary Reader: Dr. John L. Rector Secondary Reader: Dr. Penelope Brownell HST 499 Spring 2015 Western Oregon University Copyright Brian D. Reese, 2015 Reese - 2 There are times within a historical event that certain significant elements of that transforming occasion can be overlooked or not realized. This can be said for a group of soldiers who defected from the United States Army and went to fight for the Mexican forces during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. The Saint Patrick’s Battalion, or San Patricio Battalion, was a band of over two hundred men, of predominantly Irish decent, who are seldom recognized and stand apart during this event. These men represent not only the unique and little known incident amongst the past of both the United States and Mexico, but the particular reasons and motivations that drove them to take the actions that they did. Viewpoints and attitudes that others held towards these men, who were principally Irish immigrants, contributes to these motivations and reasons. It also can be asserted that the oppression that their Irish homeland had been enduring for centuries, being a part of their circumstances and the old country’s own rich background, was a major component of this episode. Mexico itself has been a country of endless change and with just as much conflict, identifying in many ways to Ireland and its people during their history, and affecting one another in various dynamic ways. According to Edward Huerta “There exists in Europe a nation called Ireland, which for most of seven hundred years had been the victim of the most terrible injustices and inequities,”. Huerta’s quote later continues “Fate, which has always been implacable with Erin green, cast it into the sharp claws of England where it has never found mercy” 1. This is an encompassing statement that indicates the actuality of the 1 Oscar R. Morales, Ireland and the Spanish Empire, 1600-1825 . (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010), 8. Reese - 3 Irish situation denoted by Oscar R. Morales. The historian assesses the Spanish relationship with the Irish, that involved a strong, correlated history. Also the events that bring the Irish under English oppression, and the resulting ascendancy are brought into discussion, explaining elements of the Irish circumstances and background factors for the men of the San Patricios. Nicholas Masergh also offers powerful reasons towards the Irish misfortune that prompted diminished lives, an increased subjugation by the English, and resulting emigration. Masergh indicates the seemingly constant exploitation of the lower classes from the aristocracy, both English and some Irish that did exist, which only increased poverty levels. At the same time, he elaborates on the overall condition of the complete ruin and siege of the land resulting from English battles of conquest from 1100 to 1850. 2 This will provide a comprehensive account of how the English ascendancy affected Irish immigrants along with the San Patricios and how difficult it we would be to fit into the expectations in a newer country. The subsequent prejudice towards people of Irish Catholic heritage, as it was with foreigners in general, was building to a rampant height during the early part of the nineteenth century, according to Paul Spickard in Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity . This historian is able to help define what the term and attitude of ‘nativism’ that had developed and within the American mindset of those people who responded towards the influx of immigrants. He illustrates the perpetual fear that Catholics had only one true servitude would be towards the pope and not the United States. 3 2 Nicholas Masergh, The Irish Question 1840-1921. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 89. 3 Paul Spickard. Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity . Reese - 4 As Spickard’s writing, along with other contemporary sources, will recognize and help explain nativism, it is a source that is completed within recent decades. It addresses the prevalent mindset that many expressed at that time. Other sources in the many decades between the defection of the San Patricios and the more recent period, do not yet recognize the San Patricio Battalion and the coinciding events. The opinion of native white dominance was still celebrated as described by J.O. Cunningham several years before this in 1912 within his article “Evolution of the American People”. This ties strongly to the idea of nativism as still present in 1912 and not yet recognizing the factors that led to the San Patricio defection. Cunningham utilizes examples as emphasizing the lack of Scotch-Irish heritage among the signers of the Declaration of Independence as well as the Pilgrims of 1620, 4 and again without any indication of a ‘nativist’ line of thought. The Catholic faith element of the San Patricios as part of who they were as Irishmen is touched on by Richard Blaine McCornack in his essay, “The San Patricio Deserters in the Mexican War.” It is one of the few early accounts to mention the San Patricio and is done more in an objective form, bringing into question the nativism that may have still been present in 1951. McCornack indicates early in the essay that the event of the San Patricio Battalion desertion, as he titled it, had been one of the very complex issues of the Mexican-American War. 5 The idea that the men of the San Patricios were influenced heavily by the Mexican clergy is prevalent in McCornack’s view and still gives indication of an importance of Irish heritage and motivations, but continues to (New York: Routledge, 2000), 124. 4 J.O. Cunningham, “Evolution of the American People”, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society . Vol. 5, No.3. (October 1912), 370. 5 Richard Blaine McCornack, “The San Patricio Deserters in the Mexican War”, The Americas , Vol.8, Reese - 5 represent a particular viewpoint that existed in the 1950s. Catholic writers however deny the Irish putting faith before patriotism, 6 Edward S. Wallace goes further through in his article “The Battalion of Saint Patrick in the Mexican War” just prior to McCornack’s essay in 1950. Wallace provides an earlier narrative of the San Patricio situation, giving additional detail of the events that unfolded not only on the U.S. side, and with the San Patricio men, but what the Mexican military leadership undertook to influence the Catholic and other foreign born soldiers to defect. He also brings into consideration the question of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion not being a group of predominantly Irish ethnicity. Wallace indicates that the further one investigates the event the more it can be realized that a given title “Irish Deserters” can be a contradiction, as there possibly were larger strains of different ethnic groups. 7 By 1989 historian Robert Ryal Miller was able to establish an account of facts that occurred with the San Patricios. Shamrock and Sword is able to convey a much larger and more thorough look at the surrounding events of the Battalion as well as the Mexican War. Miller is able to expand greatly on not only the facts that occurred within the exchange, but provides a broader if not more focused perspective of the Mexican reaction. Describing the Mexican recognition of the sacrifice that the men of the San Patricios made is a strong component of Miller’s narrative, with ceremonies happening twice a year since 1959 at the Mexico City memorial in San Angel, and provides a view of the historical meaning of these Irishmen’s actions. 8 Michael Hogan’s work in 1989, The Irish Soldiers of Mexico , continues to No.2, (October 1951), 131. 6 Ibid., 131. 7 Edward S. Wallace, “The Battalion of Saint Patrick in the Mexican War”, Military Affairs , Vol. 14 ,No.2, (Summer 1950), 89. Reese - 6 seriously uncover the myths of the San Patricio defection to fight in the Mexican army. Viewing the event with an objective sense Hogan realized that the depictions of this interesting event were indeed scant if not biased, particularly from the past American point of view. Hogan is able to describe the atmosphere of the time of the Mexican-American War of the anti-Catholicism within the United States, that coincided with such a massive immigration of the Irish during that period of the nineteenth century. It is here as well that Hogan provides a detailed narrative of the actions of the event involving the San Patricio Battalion, as he also admits that he will go beyond what the earlier account of Miller had done. 9 He describes how the San Patricios had developed into the driven and organized group that they were, contributing to the view that the Mexicans held towards the unit.
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